Dodge Ball
by uzumakisunspydr
Summary: A little downtime team bonding that gets out of hand. Just a nice little teamfic I had to get out of my head. Enjoy.


**I**** know I should be working on my chapter stories right now, but this little plot bunny wouldn't stop gnawing on my brain, and I didn't have the energy to shoo it away. Now that it's out of my head, work on The Hunt can commence. So, enjoy this little bit of team bonding and observation. Set just after Sam gets command of the Hammond.**

**Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit.**

…...

The two men circled each other, eyes intent on every movement the other made, ready to exploit any weakness that would bring one of them down. The crowd was still and quiet for once, focused on the two combatants, where during earlier bouts they had been braying for blood. But for the two, the crowd did not exist. Survival meant never losing your concentration, or your footing. The first one to stumble or make a mistake would be the one not getting up.

The spectators were just beginning to fidget when the misstep finally occurred. One of the men faltered, an error that would ultimately prove fatal. Picking up on it, the other exploded into action. One long stride brought him within range, and within seconds, his opponent was on the mat, one arm twisted gently but firmly behind his back and a knee holding him in place.

Now the crowd made noise, the room filling with cheering or jeering, depending on which combatant they had been backing. Money changed hands.

"Good one, Dr. J!"

"Make him beg, Daniel!"

"Come on Mitchell, you can do better than that!"

"Hell, my Granny can do better than that!"

From the position he was in, namely pinned and not going anywhere, Cam couldn't do much about that last comment except take note who said it and make sure that person got on the mat with him sometime in the near future. Seeing it was Colonel Dixon of SG-13, he was looking forward to it. The man usually had it coming for something or another.

He tested his friend's hold to see if there was any possibility of escape, decided there wasn't, and slapped the mat with his free hand. Once released, he rolled over and let Daniel pull him to his feet. "Good one buddy. Ready to go again?"

Daniel smirked and crouched slightly, all his weight spread evenly on the balls of his feet. "Your funeral."

"This coming from the expert on funerals. Don't think it counts if they're all your own though."

"Ooo, that was a good one. Hurt yourself?"

"You wish."

"Would you two stop the shit talking and get on with it. I got money riding on this." Dixon again.

"You didn't bet Cameron again, did you Dave?" Daniel said, never taking his eyes off his opponent. "You always lose money when you do."

Cam grinned when the rest of SG-13 started laughing, much to the annoyance of their CO. SG-13's archaeologist, Cameron Ballinsky, did have a tendency at winning a lot of the base pools somehow, something his teammates, Wells and Bosworth, were constantly trying to cash in on.

"Very funny Jackson. I'll have you know I gave up on that years ago."

"Don't worry Daniel," Wells called. "The Colonel's just mad Ballinsky shares his tips with us and not him. You take Colonel Mitchell down one more time and we all cash in."

"I better get a share of that, Simon," Daniel laughed.

The banter died down at that and Cam got down to business. He felt the surge of adrenalin that always accompanied him when he was on the mat.

Boy he loved this.

There was something about hand to hand combat that put you on equal footing and really gave you the measure of a person. While he didn't get to do this much in a practical setting, giving that they were usually fighting people who would much rather shoot you from a distance, sparring with his team was always an experience and each one of them brought a different challenge.

Fighting Teal'c was always about finding ways to counter the Jaffa's sheer physical strength, not to mention the long, long lifetime of experience. Though his training with the Sodan made things a little more even than they would have been, he still never won those bouts. But he always learned something.

Vala was fast and extraordinarily unpredictable. The former Host and pirate also brought a great deal of past experience and tricks to the table, most of it distinctly, er, dirty. The woman knew more ways to cheat than anyone should have a right to know. Those fights were somewhat annoying but also a lot of fun, and they were usually cracking up by the end.

Then there was the man he was currently circling. He'd been trained by both Teal'c and General O'Neill, and that was a hell of a résumé. He read body language almost as well as he read Ancient. They were roughly the same height, but Jackson had long arms and long, strong fingers that snagged you when you could swear you were out of reach.

But what made fighting him a unique challenge was his mind. It was the same thing with Sam, but in very different ways. Whereas Carter was very analytical and studied your moves before she made one herself, Jackson employed these intuitive leaps that made it look like he was reading your mind. While you were thinking ahead to plan B, he was all the way around the alphabet and planting your ass on the mat.

Well, not this time pal.

He watched Daniel's eyes, slightly easier to read behind contacts than glasses, trying to get a glimpse of what the man was thinking. Cam made a feint to the right, making like he was going for a leg wrap, then switched to a jointlock and made a grab for Daniel's wrist. His hand locked on to the limb, but before he could close in and bring his opponent down, Daniel reversed his body and broke his grip. Cam backpedaled furiously out of range before Daniel could retaliate, as his loss of grip left him dangerously hyper-extended.

Daniel was just starting to make a move himself when something came flying out of the crowd right at his back. "Jackson, look-" he started to warn his friend, but it was too late. Vala was airborne, and Cam winced as she landed full on him and drove him flat onto the floor. "-out."

The crowd standing around broke into laughter as Vala sat on Daniel's back with a very self satisfied look on her face. She bounced a bit and laughed when he heaved a sigh. "I'd like to call the game on account of interference," came a muffled voice from the mat.

Cam chuckled, despite himself. "Not that we don't treasure every second we spend with you Princess, but couldn't you have waited a bit. I was going to win that one."

"You guys were taking too long. You people need to learn to end fights quickly, like I do." Vala beamed as the different teams that had been watching SG-1's entertainment started to drift off, Dixon complaining loudly about the interrupted fight and asking who had his money. Cam saw Teal'c walk through the door to the gym, look around curiously, then make his way over to his teammates.

"Like a fire extinguisher to the crotch? Been there, done that, I'll pass," Daniel grumbled as he slowly got to his feet. Vala threw her arms around his neck, forcing him to take her with him. She hopped off his back when they were both upright and bounded over to Teal'c. Daniel shook his head, but Cam caught a glimpse of the slight curling at the corners of his mouth.

A moment later Vala was back. "Come on then Cameron. If you want, I'll fight you."

"I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Because. The last time I sparred with you, you bit me."

Vala threw her nose in the air." All's fair, you know. And it wasn't like I bit you hard, you big baby. Not like this one time when I was on a cargo ship with two Jaffa and a-"

"Whoa, that's okay. That story was going to approach TMI-ville pretty quick there." He looked around. They were nearly alone, just a few guys doing some close combat training at the other end of the room. "Well, all four of us are here. Let's shoot some hoops."

Daniel shrugged. "Sure, why not?" The other two chimed in their agreement.

Cam grabbed a ball out of the basket in the corner and decided they needed to mix up their usual teams. He was tired of getting slaughtered by Teal'c and Vala when they played "Aliens vs. Tau'ri" like they usually did. But he also didn't want Teal'c and Jackson together. The two had been teammates for over ten years and were just plain dangerous the way they could read each other. When he suggested that he and Teal'c team up, Jackson gave him a look, but didn't say anything, just smirked knowingly when Cam passed him the ball.

Cam rolled his eyes as Vala began to complain loudly about the teams, until Daniel finally sighed and passed the ball to her. The ball bounced off the floor and hit the distracted woman in the rear end with a satisfying "thwap".

Just as Daniel had intended.

Vala whirled on him, her mouth open in righteous indignation. Then, predictably, she seized the ball and winged it at the archaeologist's head. Daniel ducked smoothly, and the ball flew well over him-and bounced off Teal'c chest. The Jaffa raised and eyebrow at the two and scooped up the offensive item from the floor. Daniel and Vala glanced at each other in consternation, then took off toward the other side of the court, away from the Jaffa who possessed a fine sense of vengeance.

By this time Cam was laughing hard enough to bust a gut and wasn't paying any attention to what was going on around him. Situational awareness had gone right out the window about the time the ball had collided with Vala's butt. So he didn't notice the ball ricocheting off the wall until it collided with the back of his head. He stopped laughing and turned to the three guilty looking people behind him. Then, as one, they looked at the full basket of balls in the corner of the room.

Game on.

…...

General Hank Landry had always entertained his own ideas about how you could tell a good base commander from one that was less than liked. A bad commander was never in the loop, especially with the more mundane goings on of the personnel, especially the civilians. Who was seeing who, who had broken up, someone was having a party, what kind of pools were going around, that sort of thing. Those things never got passed around freely if the base commander was a hard ass, mainly because relationships of that nature were supposedly looked down upon in the military.

Now, he had always been of the mind that to socialize was human nature, no matter how many oaths you recited. Because of this he was always pretty loose in his definition of "fraternization". It may have been for that very reason that his old friend Jack O'Neill had recommended him for the job of commanding what, at the time, had seemed to be the country's most expensive lunatic asylum.

It was the only way to describe the day to day goings on in the SGC. Everyone who worked here was completely crazy, but they all did their jobs so well, and were such a close knit bunch, that it didn't seem like it at first glance. He hadn't felt like such a wet behind the ears newbie since he had started officer training school far too many years ago. Both George Hammond and Jack had left some pretty big shoes for him to fill. Then something happened a few months into his command that told him he had been accepted by his personnel as one of them, and not the new guy. The base grapevine finally made it to his door.

So it didn't surprise him too much when one of his aids stuck his head in his office and informed him that all four members of his premier team had apparently lost their collective minds and were running amok in the gym.

Well, he wasn't surprised the aid had told him. But he was rather curious as to what SG-1 was up to. They had been rather quiet lately, something he had attributed to the missing Colonel Carter. She had been in command of the _USS General George Hammond _for all of a week, and her teammates were just now getting over her absence. Teal'c and Doctor Jackson had been especially reclusive and somewhat grouchy, but Landry understood and cut them some slack. The three original members of SG-1 were a close knit family, and now one of the members was not here. It had been the same the year Colonel Carter had been commander of Atlantis. So, he was glad the two men were evidently blowing off a little steam.

Landry stood up from his desk, stretched his stiff back a bit, told his aid he was going for a walk, and headed for the base gym.

The noises that were coming from the open door as he approached gave him no clue as to what was going on inside. Neither did the two basketballs sitting in the hall like they had been flung there. He stopped just out of sight and peeked in. It sounded like several teams were playing basketball in a small space.

When he looked in he saw it was actually only one team, playing what appeared to be a apocalyptic game of dodge ball.

Basketballs were not the usual weapon of choice for this, mainly because they were damn hard, but the players were obviously being careful not to throw them full force. Which was a good thing because then he would have Carolyn in his office demanding to know why the team was in her infirmary completely black and blue. She would probably think it was some strange training regime.

Landry wondered just how this free for all started. SG-1 had been slated for hand to hand training today. Obviously, they weren't doing that anymore. But to see four grown people let loose like this was interesting to watch. He could picture it of Mitchell, and definitely Vala, but not unusually the stoic Teal'c or the dignified Jackson. What sounded like a loud curse in some other language floated out the door.

Well, usually dignified.

Doctor Jackson was glaring blue daggers at Vala, but the effect was lost by the obvious twitching of his mouth and the completely unrepentant smirk of hers. Mitchell was ducking a ball Teal'c had banked off of a wall and laughing at the same time. The Jaffa had one of his rare smiles on his face as they all paused. Landry thought the game was over, but then the four of them each dove for one of the balls scattered around the room, and the war was back on.

Landry shook his head in amusement and left them to their fun, laughter and shouts following him down the hall to the elevator that would take him back to his office. As he walked, he thought about his earlier sentiments. If understanding and open mindedness made a _good_ base commander, the people he commanded made one great.

….

Fin


End file.
